Radiation Field Inside a Reactor Made of Glass Fiber Meshes Coated with TiO2

ESTERKIN, C.R.; NEGRO, A.C.; ALFANO, O.M.; CASSANO, A.E.

AICHE JOURNAL

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2002 vol. 48 p. 832 - 845

0001-1541

A photocatalytic reactor for treating polluted gaseous streams was de¨eloped with a flat-plate configuration and parallel, glass-fiber meshes coated with TiO2 . It was irradiated from both sides with UV light provided by tubular lamps placed at both sides of the reactor. The first step in the description of the reactor performance is the knowledge of the local ¨alues of radiation intensities. The radiation field was modeled by special adaptation of the ray-tracing technique. The model uses two optical properties of the glass-fiber meshes: transmittance and reflectance. To ¨alidate the mathematical description of the reactor with experiments, the exiting radiati¨e flux from one side was measured using a precise UV detector. Predictions show a maximun error of 8.3% with respect to experimental ¨alues measured at the center of the apparatus. This description of the radiation distribution is indispensable to model the photooxidation reaction.